This volume is based on selected and updated papers from the symposium on "Basic Mechanisms of the EEG," which was held under the sponsor- ship of the German EEG Society in Hamburg on September 28-29, 1990. The intention of this symposium was to relate recent experimental, clini- cal, and neuropathological data on the basic mechanism that underlie the EEG. Although we know much about these mechanisms, there is still much more to be learned. The symposium was partly the continuation of an earlier symposium on "Origin of Cerebral Field Potentials" held in 1979 in Munster under the leadership of...

It is easy to imagine the excitement that pervaded the neurological world in the late 1920's and early 1930's when Berger's first descriptions of the electro- encephalogram appeared. Berger was not the first to discover that changes in electric potential can be recorded from the surface of the head, but it was he who first systematized the method, and it was he who first proposed that explanatory correlations might be found between the electroencephalogram, brain processes, and behavioral states. An explosion of activity quickly fol- lowed: studies were made of the brain waves in virtually...

DC-potential changes, comprising fast fluctuations and slow shifts, rep- resent objective concomitants of neuronal processes in the brain. They can be recorded not only in animals, but also in humans under various conditions. As far as slow brain potentials are concerned, exciting results have been detected with respect to their correlation to psychophysiolog- ical events. Although a large amount of data has been accumulated by psychophysiologists, neurophysiologists, and other scientists involved, the neurophysiological basis of these field potentials is still not clear, and remains...